Good, a Standard

HORATIO W. NELSON.

MANY critics have said that the Christian Scientist's denial of evil's reality is absurd. It will, however, be found to be entirely logical if given a little earnest consideration. It may be stated without dispute that sin is evil and is simply another name for error; in other words, that it is not truth, and that the correction of an error should leave nothing to take its place.

The word truth, taken in its broader significance, and the word science considered in the same way, represent standards,—perfect Principle, fixed laws, perfect harmony, and so on. In Mrs. Eddy's writings we learn that whatever is true belongs necessarily to the essential reality of things, and as we ponder over her wonderfully comprehensive statements a clear path is opened up for the investigator into the philosophy and demonstration of Christian Science.

It is advisable in considering this subject to start with a clean page and a clearly stated premise. The primal reality, or cause of being, cannot be finite, that is to say, it is absolutely unthinkable that the creator of all could ever have had a beginning or an ending. The human mind, therefore, can only state that the origin of cause is simply unthinkable, and that a finite cause or finite creator is self-contradictory. God, the creator, cannot be finite, and therefore must necessarily be infinite.

Perfect harmony cannot include discord, and perfect good cannot include evil. Evil may be considered as a generic or an inclusive name for any and all kinds of discord and error. All evil is theoretically capable of correction; an error or discord corrected no longer exists; it has, therefore, but a temporary or seeming existence. To correct good, or to correct harmony and perfection, is impossible; intrinsically they have a fixed value, they are standards. The teaching of Christian Science that good is all, permits us to start with fixed Principle and a clean page, and if the argument and investigation be pursued on the basis of this premise, the conclusion reached will be that it is impossible to consider evil as an entity.

The agnostic, or liberal thinker, may without hesitancy take Mrs. Eddy's several works on Christian Science, and read in connection with the books of the New Testament without offence to his intelligence, and be well repaid for the effort. He will assuredly find that the allness of good and the nothingness of evil is the basis of its philosophy and is acceptable to his reason. If he cares to apply the understanding of Principle thus gained, by denying the reality of the evils apparently surrounding him, and affirming the fixity and permanence of good, he will gain a new and higher sense of the meaning of Life; and, surprising though it may seem to him, during the process he will probably find that many physical and mental ills and discords in his personal experience, which heretofore seemed to have a fixed value,—a reality with him,—have disappeared, faded into nothingness: their supposed substance has become less than a shadow.

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